Setting foot in a classroom as a new teacher can be overwhelming enough to ground many fledgling teachers before they even take off.
But the University of Colorado at Boulder's School of Education is striving to make the process less daunting by pairing newly licensed teachers with experienced teachers from local school districts. And at the same time, the new teachers get a head start on their master's degrees.
During the 2006-07 school year, about 40 first- or second-year teachers are participating in a CU-Boulder School of Education program known as Partners in Education, or PIE, according to John Zola, the program's director.
"This is an incredibly stressful time for new teachers, and the program is meant to up the odds that teachers stay in the field," Zola said.
Nationally, close to 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession within the first five years, an alarming trend for a country with a knowledge-based economy that demands a well-educated population, he said. However, the retention rate among teachers who participate in CU-Boulder's PIE program is nearly 95 percent, according to Zola.
"These young teachers spend a lot of money going to college and then going through the teacher licensing program, so if they can improve their odds of staying in the field from 50 percent to better than 90 percent, it's a pretty good investment," Zola said.
PIE program participants are newly licensed teachers who agree to forfeit a portion of their salary, currently about 20 percent, in exchange for 15 tuition credits toward a master's degree through CU-Boulder's School of Education. They also receive coaching, classroom management strategies and other advice from their clinical professors, who are experienced teachers from the same school district.
School districts that employ PIE teachers use savings from reduced salaries to pay the clinical professors, who are released from their classroom duties in the district to work with CU-Boulder students.
Each clinical professor mentors several PIE teachers in the classroom for one half-day each week, and also spends time teaching, supervising student teachers or conducting research at CU-Boulder's School of Education, according to Zola. They also are engaged in district-level professional development training activities.
In addition to receiving mentoring, PIE teachers have an opportunity to network with and support other novice teachers in the program. And they also enjoy more rapid advancement on the salary scale compared to teachers who don't begin a master's degree program early in their careers, Zola said.
Alaina Kaumans participated in the PIE program during the 2005-06 school year and teaches at Sunset Ridge Elementary School in Westminster. She is working toward her master's degree in social, multicultural and bilingual foundations of education.
"Having a mentor in my classroom during my first year of teaching was great," Kaumans said. "The support and the feedback from a teacher who had been through the same thing really helped me."
Kaumans said her degree will be very useful in her school, which has many English as a second language, or ESL, students.
Adams County 1, Mapleton, Adams 12 Five Star Schools, Adams County 50, Boulder Valley, Brighton 27J and St. Vrain Valley school districts participate in the partnership with CU-Boulder.
For more information about the PIE program visit the Web site at .